The Classics

I gasp at the thought of having not read so many of the classic novels that have been around for centuries!  I do enjoy reading but I like my books with a bit of adventure and action.  Not all the classics live up to my likeness but, then again, they shouldn't.  Not all books should be alike.  Books are like people: if we were all the same and lacked differences, the world would be vague and hollow- having nothing to distinguish an individual from the other and offering nothing of a genuine or authentic nature. Without variety, the world we live in would be void of originality.
So there's my schpeel on the importance of a books' individuality. :)  Finally, here are some of the classics that I will be reading sometime in the future:

MY TOP TEN:
1.  Robin Hood Howard Pyle.
2.  The Count of Monte Cristo by ALexandre Dumas.
3.  The Princess Bride by William Goldman.
4.  The Stand by Stephen King.
5.  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.
6.  Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
7.  Dracula by Bram Stoker.
8.  Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
9.  King Arthur, Sir Launcelot, and His Men by Howard Pyle (not a direct title to a book).
10.  Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens.
                    ....................................
 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck.
This Side of Paradise by F Scott Fitzgerald.
Twighlight Land by Howard Pyle.
   (Haunting fairy tales told at the Inn of the Sign of Mother Goose.)
The BFG by Roald Dahl.
The Princess and the Gobling King by George MacDonald.
A Room with a View by EM Forster.
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (I've watched it but never read it).
Call of the Wild Jack London.
White Fang by Jack London.
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Alice in Wonderland AND Though the Looking Glass by Lewis Carol.
THe Iliad by Homer.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.
Beowulf by unknown.
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain.
The Last of the Mohican's by James Fenimore Cooper.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingles.
Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene.
The works of the lovely Jane Austin.
    ~Pride and Prejudice
    ~Sense and Sensibility
    ~Emma
    ~Persuasion
    ~Northanger Abbey
    ~Mansfield Park
    ~Lady Susan
The many works of Charles Dickens:
   ~A Tale of two Cities
   ~Great Expectations
   ~A Christmas Carol

Last, but certainly not the least, the works of William Shakespeare.  I put this last because I have read many of his writings. As a senior in high school, rather than taking a fourth English class, I enrolled in a Shakespeare class... probably my favorite class in all of high school. We read plays, acted plays, watched plays (both video and live). It was a thoroughly enjoyable class and it will be missed. We even took two trips during the school year to travel to Ashland to watch several plays at the Shakespeare Festival.  It was grand!